College Baseball: Former Knights find their swings at Kutztown

Matt Albaugh of North Penn now plays for Kutztown. Submitted Photo to the Times Herald.

KUTZTOWN — Matt Albaugh enjoys keeping tabs on former North Penn High baseball players and how well they’re performing at the collegiate level.

This season, all he has to do is look in his team’s boxscore.

His team is Kutztown University, and this year he and teammate Brandon Martinez, both North Penn products, are off to fast starts and are a major reason why the traditionally successful Golden Bears are sizzling once again, winning 20 of their first 25 starts.

Albaugh, the clean-up hitter and catcher, was hitting a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference-leading .452 through Friday’s action, while leading the team in both RBIs (19), on-base percentage (.538) and slugging percentage (.613), while Martinez, in his first season as starting outfielder and leadoff hitter after transferring to Kutztown from Southern New Hampshire University last year, is second on the team and third in the Pa. State Athletic Conference in hitting (.423), while sporting a .526 slugging percentage, a .489 on-base percentage and leads the team in both steals (12) and runs scored (22).

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In fact, one could say Knight games have been a key to the team’s start.

“It’s real cool seeing North Penn players having success at the next level,” Albaugh said, shortly after Kutztown had taken a doubleheader from Shippensburg. “Brandon is a year younger than me and this is a good place for him.

“Traditionally, we have a pretty solid team, we have good players every year and no one wants to be on the (Kutztown) team that loses, or doesn’t go to the playoffs. We want to be successful. I guess things didn’t work out for Brandon (at Southern New Hampshire), but he’s a player that works real hard, so it’s good seeing him have success.”

“We take pride in that,” said Martinez, when the subject of the former North Penn teammates enjoying success together at the college level is raised. “I think it all relates to the coaching we got at North Penn.

“We worked hard in the off-season to make ourselves better, and really, this whole team works real hard.”

Martinez said he didn’t necessarily have Kutztown in mind when he chose to leave Southern New Hampshire, but he knew where he wanted to play.

“(Southern New Hampshire) is a real good school and has a good baseball program, they went to the (Division II) College World Series last year,” the outfielder said. “But the school was a little too small for me. I was used to going to school at North Penn with 3,000 students. And, I didn’t see myself getting much playing time.

“I always wanted to play PSAC baseball, so I looked at schools like Bloomsburg and Kutztown.”

But when Martinez showed up on the Kutztown baseball field a season ago, his name wasn’t exactly Xeroxed into the Bears lineup.

“We had a veteran outfield,” Albaugh said, “so it was tough for him to get playing time.

“But he’s a good player, and with some of those veterans gone, he’s really stepped up this year.”

“I got a few starts last year and I learned from them,” Martinez said. “And this year, when I got some starts, I took advantage of it.

“One thing our coach (Chris Blum) focuses on is that there are no guaranteed spots. If you’re not helping the team win, you’re not going to start. There’s not much complacency around here.”

That lack of complacency has helped the Bears soar in recent years, with Blum-led teams winning PSAC championships in 2005, 2006 and 2008, winning North Atlantic Regional crowns in 2004, 2007 and 2010 and appearing in the NCAA regional tournament nine times.

“Everyone is motivated to keep having good teams,” Albaugh said.

For Albaugh, that motivation led him to play in a Prospect League in Butler, Pa. last summer, a decision he said is behind his fast start this year.

“(Former Kutztown teammate and San Francisco Giants draft choice) Shayne Houck set me up with it,” Albaugh said. “We played about 60 games in 70 days and I caught about three-fourths of the games.

“It really helped me, it made me much more consistent.”

Albaugh said it also instilled more discipline in his approach to hitting.

“I remember when I came in here my freshman year, I wasn’t that patient a hitter,” Albaugh said. “This year, I’m more patient at the plate, I’m getting on base and getting pitches I can drive.”

Martinez’s off-season work was correcting some bad habits he’d gotten into with his swing.

“I wasn’t staying down and hitting through the ball,” Martinez explained. “I put a lot of hours in getting that corrected.”

The work, as it usually does, has paid off. The Bears are at their usual spot, atop the PSAC East.

And a couple of former Knights have helped put them there, while becoming close friends.

“I don’t think we were that close in high school,” Martinez said. “Now, after spending a lot of time together, we’re pretty close friends.”

The team goals are the same.

“In the long run, we want to be in the (College) World Series,” Albaugh said. “But right now we have to take things a game at a time.”

“When recruits come here, they come here expecting to win,” Martinez said. “They’re expecting to play in the regional playoffs.

“We’ve started the season with six PSAC wins, and hopefully we can continue it.”

In the meantime, Martinez is enjoying PSAC baseball and a reunion of sorts with a high school teammate.